9/4/1997

First Set

• Feel Like a Stranger
• Pretty Peggy-O
• Cassidy
• Dire Wolf
• Little Red Rooster
   

Second

• Tennessee Jed
• She Belongs To Me
• China Cat Sunflower->
• I Know You Rider
• Samson & Delilah
• He's Gone->
• Other One->
• Wharf Rat->
• Around and Around
   

Notes

• This night was not to be like other Deadstein nights. About 1:45 p.m. I returned Larry Brent's phone call from work only to find out he is pretty sick and was not going to make it. Now he must have been pretty sick because he's has driven through rain, sleet and snow to get to a Deadstein jam. His last words to me were, "Why Don't you get Trister?"
• At about 1:46 p.m. I reached Trister on his cell phone as he was on I-95 in Connecticut and he was enthusiastic about the opportunity to play with us. He loves jamming and he felt like getting away from his wife and Deadstein is the perfect Bedrock Fire Department. I immediatley gave him the address, he made a quick right turn to get to his house and pick up his axe and amp and he was off to finish his 9 to 5 before heading into the Big Apple. It was wonderful how well that all went. A good day was turning into a great day. If I knew how to, I would have played the lottery.
• Lots of good stuff happened during the day and the Deadstein featuring Trister was the icing on the cake.
• There was virtually no traffic in or out. The last 15 month of my work paid off this morning as bid we were working on save the MCMUA an estimated $2.25 million over the next two years. To boot, I got a new chair from Kevy on my way home and in the word of Tony the Tiger, "It's Great!!!!!" I feel as if I can post all night.
• Besides Trister, the only real guest was Spillboy. He came loaded with Jack and no one minds a spill of that down your throat. I noticed there was a major spill toward the end of the night that I saw Freakboy clean but I don't know who was the culprit. If it was Spillboy, I would like to know.
• Speaking of Freakboy, It is rumored he was giving us some good stuff. I didn't see too much dancing but he was urging the drummers on at time and caught us all off guard with a late night donning on the skirt.
• It was a weird night because Larry provides much of the substance of Deadstein, and without him there there was slack to reel in. Trister handled the guitar part and Rich and I split the singing part. There were some real squeekers, but overall, the vocals were in no way a significant hindrance on the enjoyment of the night.
• Considering, we didn't have the stabilizing assistance of Larry, it is pretty surprising how solidly we played and how few problems there were.
• Got the new MXR EQ in the room but was tweaked well enough to be proper.
• Larry M. was asking for a Trister monitor during the first song, but I'm glad he had the patients for Andy to turn up the volume instead of Larry. As time went on, Trister found his space and I'm sure no one needed additional monitors to muddy up the freakiness.

• Mercados Italian food. The home of the six foot sub was Deadstein's Epicurean home for the night. New on the list, not outstanding but adequate.
• We ate before playing and it was a good thing because we played virtually the whole set list. Only stopping for a good reason.
• Heroes included veal, chicken and meatball parm. The meat was good, the cheese was good but funky and the bread was the weakest point. The salad was nice but the requirement of dressing it yourself limited much of its potential. It didn't have time to marinate.
• Rice balls with internal cheese and mozzarella sticks rounded the card. Cokes remained and the rumored bag of cookies never appeared.
• One thing the Stardust Dine-o-Mat taught me was to never over estimate a restaurant's first impression.

First Set Comments

• The Stranger may have been the weakest song of the night. Sounds, tempos and even my newly strung were using the song to get accustomed to the atmosphere In addition, there wasn't enough freakiness going on.
• We rectified all of the above by the Peggy-O and it was pretty, quiet and pretty quiet (mutually exclusive of each other). Rich sang it. The lead was unbelievable. There was one point during it where it was going along beautifully and during the duration of to chord changes Kevin and I basically stopped played, listened for a bit as the lead perfectly closed out the silence as we all joined in. It was one of the many magic moments.
• The Cassidy smoked, I sang it. The jam was hot, relatively short and not as frantic as a standard Deadstein Cassidy. The whip worked and the reprised without a surprise.
• I sang Dire Wolf. It was a real challenge but I pulled through. The lead was great to take a part of.
• Rooster had some really good Trister moments. I sang it and also took a normal lead, not a slide lead. The entire second lead went one round too many. Other minor faux-pas included Trister only taking one round of lead during the two round first lead. Rich also made a similar type of minor glitch. Even with these minor flaws, it was smokin'.
• No matter how comfortable this great chair is, it's 1:30 a.m. and I'm getting tired. I going to just post segments for my memory herein below and will hopefully substitute the fragments with complete sentences.
• The Jed had structural flaws in format as we entered the jam after only 2 rounds of verses. The jam itself was good. Rich sang
• She belongs to me was sweet and quiet.

Second Set Comments

• I sang the China Cat. Johnny had some classics body gyrations as he sang the "I wished I was a headlight" line.
• Samson was super hot, really clean , piercing notes throughout. Very authentic.
• Trister sang the He's Gone and was well played
• Rich sang the Other One. It was a Blitzkrieg
• I sang the Wharf Rat
• I sang the Around and Around. We never got the the key change as Kevy went into the fast jam before the last verse.

Weather

• Considering there were glimmers of Fall outside, it was relatively warm inside.